Briatore cashes in after 'crashgate' life ban is overturned

Flavio Briatore is free to return to Formula 1 after a French court overturned his lifetime ban from motor-sport.

The FIA handed the former Renault team principal the stringent suspension in September for his role in the 'crashgate' scandal.

The 59-year-old Italian took his case to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris claiming the FIA did not have legal grounds to issue him with a wholesale ban.

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Renault's former director of engineering, Pat Symonds, has also had his five-year suspension quashed by the TGI.

However, Briatore and Symonds have only received 13,500 and 4,500 in damages apiece after initially seeking 900,000 and 450,000, respectively.

The FIA have 15 days to pay the duo, otherwise they will be liable to a penalty of 9,000 per day. According to French media, the judge presiding over the case is understood to have claimed the FIA's sanction "was illegal."

Briatore was involved in a conspiracy which saw Nelson Piquet Jnr deliberately crash his car at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to help team-mate Fernando Alonso take the win.

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Although Briatore threatened legal action against Piquet Jnr and father Nelson Piquet Snr, that was soon dropped.

Then just five days before the World Motor Sport Council sat in judgment on Renault on September 21, Briatore and Symonds vacated their positions at the team.

After the FIA handed out the sentences, Briatore later claimed former FIA president Max Mosley was "blinded by an excessive desire for personal revenge" in pursuing the case.

Briatore's claim stemmed from his involvement in plans for a breakaway series – an issue which rumbled on through much of last season before an agreement was reached for manufacturers to stay in Formula 1.

A further effect for Briatore is that he is clear to continue his ownership of football club QPR as a "fit and proper person".

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